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87-454: The Driver is a 1978 American crime thriller film written and directed by Walter Hill , and starring Ryan O'Neal , Bruce Dern and Isabelle Adjani . The film featured only unnamed characters, and follows a getaway driver for robberies whose exceptional talent has prevented him being caught. A detective promises pardons to a gang if they help catch him in a set-up robbery. 20th Century Fox released The Driver on July 28, 1978. The film

174-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

261-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

348-419: A chance", said Hill. "This was not meant to be an everyday action movie. I was trying to do something a little more, or a little less, but I was trying to do something else." The script was written in a sparse, minimalist style, which Hill had first employed on Hard Times : "I thought that approach made people read with greater intention. It's spare in detail but written to dramatic effect. You could maybe capture

435-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

522-400: A comedy and romantic star at the time, O'Neal's casting enabled the filmmakers to secure financing. O'Neal complimented the filmmaker as "a force to be reckoned with", as well as "a first rate writer and an even better director. And he's fast. Most young directors today think they are David Lean ; they spend over a year on a film and we get robots that talk." Several actors were considered for

609-569: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

696-451: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

783-529: A deal: hire The Driver for a bank heist and deliver him to the police; in return, they will go free. They seek The Driver via The Connection, his middleman and fence . The Driver initially refuses to work with the men due to his dislike of guns, but agrees to meet with them. When his driving skill is questioned, he systematically wrecks the criminals' car in a display of his prowess, and tells the gang he will not work with them. Later, Teeth visits The Driver to ask him again to join them, eventually threatening him with

870-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

957-466: A gun. The Driver challenges Teeth to shoot, before beating him down. The Detective taunts The Driver at his rented room and challenges him to a 'game'. Despite being aware it is a set up, The Driver agrees to take part in the job on the conditions that his fee is doubled and Teeth is not involved. During the heist, Glasses kills Fingers and escapes with The Driver. He does not deliver The Driver to The Detective, instead planning to kill him and make off with

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1044-418: A live-action/animated short by Don Hertzfeldt See also [ edit ] Genre , the generic term referring to all forms of art and entertainment B movie , a generic film with minimal artistic ambitions Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Genre film . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

1131-481: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

1218-447: A lot of dialogue. [...] They like a balance. I wanted Bruce to very much offset the distance of The Driver." The film featured several car chase sequences designed by Hill and stunt coordinator Everett Creach. Hill says he felt the first chase was "kind of a failure" because it "was meant to lead up to a much more spectacular finish" but he was unable to film it properly: it was done on the last night of shooting and an electrician fell off

1305-672: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

1392-485: A name. But when we got Ryan, I suggested we make changes to suit his character. This is always the director's prerogative. Isabelle Adjani later complained she felt the film hurt her career. "Afterwards the only American offers I got were bad ones", she said. "I did it, really because after The Story of Adele H everyone urged me to make a Hollywood film. I turned down several, and felt I couldn't continue to do that. And I liked Walter Hill. Only later did I realize I'd made

1479-522: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

1566-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

1653-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

1740-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

1827-618: A shot and setup of Vincent Vega skidding out into the road with an overdosed Mia Wallace in the passenger seat in Pulp Fiction is copied from the opening chase of The Driver ; and Beatrix Kiddo being described as "the cowgirl [who] ain't never been caught" in Kill Bill: Volume 2 is copied from Ryan O'Neal's character description in The Driver as "the cowboy who could not be caught". According to Wensley Clarkson's book, Tarantino – The Man,

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1914-554: A suitable star could be found for the lead. According to Hill, the script was unable to bring in talents for "about a year and a half." The role of the Driver was originally intended for Steve McQueen , who had starred in the Hill-scripted The Getaway (1972). McQueen turned down the role because, as Hill stated, he refused to star in another film that revolved substantially around cars. The studio then went to Bronson, but he

2001-542: A terrible mistake." Walter Hill recalled, "Had I not been shooting The Warriors at the time, I don't think my career would have survived. They loved it overseas, but in those days, that didn't matter that much. It made exactly zero dollars in the United States. "I think Ryan gave a very good performance", added Hill. "I was always very happy with what he did." He said, "I was very disappointed that people didn't particularly give him any credit for what he did. To me, he's

2088-404: A unique approach to standard material. We'd go the same way again, but with a different cast we might have attracted an audience. I believe in returning investors' money – and if I could make The Driver again I'd try to rectify it for a commercial market. When you're writing this kind of script... naturally you think of an action lead like [Charles] Bronson or Eastwood... and certainly Fox wanted

2175-524: Is a bad imitation of an American gangster picture." Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote "It is Awful Movie. It is Pretentious Movie. It is Silly Movie. It talks just like this." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave The Driver 2.5 stars out of 4, writing, "It's a movie about people who are not real because they are symbols, and it's a damned good thing there are great chase scenes or

2262-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

2349-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

2436-651: Is known among criminals for his high skill and his high price, and is notorious among the police, particularly for The Detective who is obsessed with capturing The Driver whom he calls "Cowboy". The Driver pulls a job at a casino where his co-conspirators are late and he is seen by The Player. The Detective asks her to identify The Driver, but she denies seeing him. The Driver comes to The Player's apartment to pay her. They are interrupted by The Detective, who threatens The Player and alludes to her criminal history. The Detective sets up an illegal sting . He offers three arrested criminals – Glasses, Teeth and their driver, Fingers –

2523-536: Is restful not to have a life behind me; this way, I don't have to dig deep to play the part. All I know is that life for me is gambling and I am a loser. I have what people call a poker face. The studio recommended Robert Mitchum for the role of the Detective. Hill liked the idea and met with Mitchum to discuss the part but the actor turned it down. Hill ended up casting Bruce Dern . "I wanted Bruce's personality", he said. "Audiences get nervous about movies that don't have

2610-400: Is wonderful, very much in the tradition of Howard Hawks , lean and spare. The story is contemporary but also very stylized, and the roles that Ryan and I play are like Bogart and Bacall . We are both gamblers in our souls and we do not show our emotions or say a lot. For us, talk is cheap. I am really quite a mysterious girl in this film, with no name and no background. And I must say that it

2697-566: The San Diego Reader gave it five out of five stars. "The whole show, in fact, is something like a coded message passed from the moviemaker to the devotees of the genre, in full view of, but beyond the full understanding of, the rest of the audience", according to Shepherd. As of December 2023, the film holds an approval rating of 79% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 29 reviews. The site's consensus states: "A tough, highly stylized thriller with amazing sound design and car chases." The movie

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2784-617: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

2871-496: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

2958-1031: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

3045-490: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

3132-602: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

3219-676: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

3306-638: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

3393-493: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

3480-518: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

3567-779: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

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3654-649: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

3741-531: The Myths and His Movies , Tarantino lists The Driver as one of the "coolest movies of all time." The film also influenced Drive (2011), directed by Nicolas Winding Refn . "It's a very different movie", said Hill of this. "It has certain things, as Nic has told me, that are homage and that's fine. It's very complimentary. I bear him no animosity or anything. I think he's a remarkably talented guy and quite like him." Baby Driver (2017), directed by Edgar Wright ,

3828-509: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

3915-457: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

4002-401: The bag' as each person departs. The Driver is the second film Walter Hill wrote and directed after Hard Times (1975), which starred Charles Bronson . Hill and producer Larry Gordon had just finished Hard Times when Gordon suggested to Hill that they make a film about a getaway driver , to which Hill agreed. Hill then wrote an original screenplay over the summer of 1975, in between

4089-592: The best he's ever been. I cannot imagine another actor. When you don't get who you want, sometimes you really do get lucky." EMI Films had announced plans to make another film with Hill, a Western called The Last Gun , but this did not happen. The film has gone on to become more popular, and it is often the first film shown during retrospectives of Hill's work. The Reflections Interactive video game Driver (1999) uses several thematic inspirations from this movie. Both Quentin Tarantino 's Pulp Fiction (1994) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) refer to this film:

4176-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

4263-596: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

4350-472: The car. The Driver kills Teeth when he refuses to surrender. The Kid returns the purse and is allowed to leave. The Driver and The Player return to the train station. When The Driver retrieves the bag from the locker, The Detective and several police officers appear, but the bag is empty, the money having been ripped off by the Exchange Man. The Player leaves. The Driver leaves The Detective literally 'holding

4437-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

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4524-420: The clean money in a locker, then boards a train with the dirty money. He is followed on board by The Detective, who kills him in a shootout. Teeth robs The Player of her purse containing the key to the clean money locker. Teeth and his driver, The Kid, are pursued by The Driver and The Player in a car chase culminating in a warehouse, where The Driver drives directly at Teeth's car , causing them to swerve and flip

4611-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

4698-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

4785-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

4872-671: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

4959-399: The dramatic scenes first during the day, then the chase scenes at night. Hill said the night shooting was draining: "It's like you're swimming underwater or hypnotised. And I'm a person that stays up late and wakes up early. But staying up night after night after night really threw me out. You make decisions you cannot explain. You just intuit." Hill says the major visual influence on the film

5046-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

5133-495: The female lead, including Julie Christie and Charlotte Rampling . Eventually, it went to Isabelle Adjani , who had gained an international reputation with The Story of Adele H (1975). This was Adjani's first Hollywood role; she had previously turned down the chance to star in The Other Side of Midnight (1977), but agreed to make The Driver because she was an admirer of Hard Times . Of Hill, Adjani commented: I think he

5220-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

5307-498: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. genre film Genre film may refer to: A film conforming to a well-defined film genre Genre Films , aka Kinberg Genre, a television and film production company Genre (1996 film) ,

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5394-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

5481-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

5568-518: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

5655-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

5742-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

5829-503: The mind of the reader a little better." Hill sent a copy of the original draft of the script to director Raoul Walsh , who gave it his approval. In the late 1970s, Britain's EMI Films came under the stewardship of Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings . They began co-financing movies shot in Hollywood in association with major US studios that were aimed at the international market, such as Convoy , The Deer Hunter and The Driver . They were interested in financing The Driver provided

5916-403: The money. The Driver surprises him with a gun, kills him, and stashes the money in a locker at Union Station . He has The Connection launder the dirty money and enlists The Player to retrieve it once clean. Meanwhile, Teeth has discovered Glasses dead and interrogates The Connection at gunpoint, killing her once she has revealed The Driver's plans. At the train station, The Exchange Man stashes

6003-426: The movie would sink altogether." Hege. of Variety said it may be the first film where the star of the show is a sound effect and called it a "bleak wreck of a film" and that "because of the quiet and mysterious mood of this picture, it has a pretentious quality to it" although noted that the car chases are fabulous. Saying it's "probably advisable for film noir aficionados only", film critic Duncan Shepherd of

6090-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

6177-409: The period when Hard Times was made and when it was released (there was a delay because the studio was waiting for other Bronson films to come out). Hill says he was interested to see how "pure" a film he could make: a genre film that did not conform itself in conventional, Hollywood ways. He said he wrote it as a "very tight script." "I knew when I was getting ready to do the movie that I was taking

6264-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

6351-452: The roof and was badly injured; Hill could not get all the shots he wanted and had to "cobble together" the end result. However, he felt the sequence with the Mercedes 250 S in the garage and the final chase were "as fully realised as I could get them to be." Hill wanted to film chase scenes at night, which he felt had not been done many times in films before. In order to expedite this, Hill shot

6438-532: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

6525-539: The studio had this huge sheaf of Xeroxed reviews they’d handed me — you could stop a fucking .45 slug with this stack, it was so thick. And of all the reviews in this six-inch thick pile, there was only one good one." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "ultraviolent trash that wipes out Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern and Isabella Adjani... plays like a bad imitation of a French gangster picture which in turn

6612-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

6699-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

6786-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

6873-467: The year. Producer Larry Gordon later reflected on the film's poor critical and box office response in the US: If we'd had Clint Eastwood in the film, we'd have been forgiven everything and they'd have said, 'It's another Eastwood film about driving cars'." If we'd had Steve McQueen , we'd have been compared to Bullitt or The Getaway . We were treated as an art film rather than an action film. We took

6960-434: Was a box office disappointment in the United States but performed better overseas. Despite initial negative reviews it has become one of Hill's most popular films, and received more positive critical reception in later years. Directors Quentin Tarantino , Nicolas Winding Refn and Edgar Wright have cited The Driver as a major influence. The Driver steals cars for use as getaway vehicles in robberies around Los Angeles. He

7047-421: Was a commercial disappointment in the United States although it performed better overseas. Hill says "I don't think you could say the film did commercially well anywhere except Japan, where I believe it did reasonable business." The film opened in 642 theatres in the United States, grossing $ 2 million for the weekend. The film grossed a total of 1,102,183 admissions in France. It was the 33rd most popular film of

7134-492: Was also influenced by The Driver . Wright commented on Hill's film: "Its influence on video games is very clear and in movies its style has echoed throughout the work of Michael Mann , James Cameron , Quentin Tarantino, Nicolas Refn and now me with my new film (ahem), Baby Driver ." Around 1996, 20th Century Fox was developing a remake of the film to be directed by Luc Besson , who had already had huge success with films like La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional and

7221-518: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

7308-435: Was the works of artist Edward Hopper . He was also influenced by his work as a second assistant director on Bullitt (1968), which featured a famous car chase. What fascinated Hill on Bullitt was the abundance of shots captured from inside the cars, which compelled him to film the same amount on The Driver . Production wrapped on the film April 1978. Contemporary reviews were extremely poor. Hill later said, "I remember

7395-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

7482-513: Was unhappy with Hill. "He thought I had edited Hard Times in a way that had not favoured [Bronson's wife and co-star] Jill Ireland ", said Hill, who added he "never thought" casting Bronson "was a good idea. And I never thought he'd do it." Hill was contacted by Ryan O'Neal 's agent and agreed to meet the star. "We talked about the role and talked about the minimalist approach I wanted to try", said Hill. "He felt he could do it and we just got comfortable with each other." Although considered primarily

7569-527: Was working on The Fifth Element . He worked on the script with screenwriter John Pogue , but it was not made. Crime film Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

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